Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS

Workable Sisterhood: The Political Journey of Stigmatized Women with HIV/AIDS

Synopsis

Workable Sisterhoodis an empirical look at sixteen HIV-positive women who have a history of drug use, conflict with the law, or a history of working in the sex trade. What makes their experience with the HIV/AIDS virus and their political participation different from their counterparts of people with HIV? Michele Tracy Berger argues that it is the influence of a phenomenon she labels "intersectional stigma," a complex process by which women of color, already experiencing race, class, and gender oppression, are also labeled, judged, and given inferior treatment because of their status as drug users, sex workers, and HIV-positive women. The work explores the barriers of stigma in relation to political participation, and demonstrates how stigma can be effectively challenged and redirected. The majority of the women in Berger's book are women of color, in particular African Americans and Latinas. The study elaborates the process by which these women have become conscious of their social position as HIV-positive and politically active as activists, advocates, or helpers. She builds a picture of community-based political participation that challenges popular, medical, and scholarly representations of "crack addicted prostitutes" and HIV-positive women as social problems or victims, rather than as agents of social change. Berger argues that the women's development of a political identity is directly related to a process called "life reconstruction." This process includes substance- abuse treatment, the recognition of gender as a salient factor in their lives, and the use of nontraditional political resources.

Excerpt

I am sitting in a living room, in Detroit, full of decoratively placed plants. Thecolorful plants help to make the sparsely furnished room feel comfortable. Myattention is drawn back to Nicole, a forty-two-year-old African Americanwoman sitting in front of me on the couch. She is wearing an amber coloreddress. Her braids are held back by an attractive hair tie, and she possessesa clear cadence to her voice. We have been talking for about an hour, andall my senses are alert. Nicole is about to tell me more of her recent politicalprojects. From a manila folder, Nicole pulls out some materials to show me.Her file is crammed with press clippings, letters from Congresspeople, andgrant applications.

Nicole is a former sex worker, former small-time drug dealer, and formercrack addict. She contracted HIV five years ago; she has been and continues tobe a stigmatized woman. Yet these categories alone I mention above contributelittle to understanding her life when she was those other things, nor, more importantly, what her life has become now. She is a woman living with HIV whohas become politically engaged. She is one of the foremost people involved withwomen and AIDS activism in Detroit. That afternoon we talk about Detroitpolitics, black male and female relationships, and prostitution. After talkingwith Nicole I feel that I am on to “something” about women and politicalengagement; I am learning from her. (Fieldnote 1996)

THIS FIELDNOTE, written in 1996, initiated a new way of thinking about the various women I had been studying in Detroit. What had begun several years ago as a research inquiry into the status of female lawbreakers, a “story” about crime, prostitution, and the ravages of crack cocaine use, had instead over time become transformed into a “story” explicating the lives of stigmatized, politically active HIV-positive women. This story was recast to highlight women (formerly active female lawbreakers) who after being diagnosed with the HIV/AIDS virus changed their lives. Finally, it evolved into a story about stigma, struggle, and a group of women who are nontraditional political actors. The process of how Nicole and other women reconstituted their lives once they became HIVpositive, how they created and utilized a web of nontraditional resources and participated in their communities became the cornerstone of this . . .